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'Sex & The City' goes global

William M. Dowd photos

After a four-year drought, "Sex and The City" is back -- in movie form, rather than the TV series. But that's good enough for cocktail lounges and home parties looking to celebrate the return of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte.

For some marketing reason I'm unclear about, the film debuted in London even though it's a New York City creature through and through. The "S&TC" craze stretched throughout the United Kingdom as I found out when I dropped in at Tigerlily,the trendy boutique hotel and cocktail lounge in Edinburgh, Scotland, last week.

I was there during a tour of distilleries for beverage writers, co-sponsored by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) and the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA). Colleague Camper English, a spirits writer who lives in San Francisco, and I were doing as "pub crawl" to see what cocktails were being created in the Scottish capital known for its nightlife.

Tigerlily not only had posters out for the movie, it had sprinkled rose petals on the bar and tabletops and was pushing Cosmopolitans, the ubiquitous cocktail connected with the TV series.

I shied away from the Cosmo, manly man that I am, and instead opted for something called the Swedish Mohican (seen above), It's actually a vodka sour made with Cape North vodka from Sweden, touches of lemon and cumber juice and a bit of fresh thyme plus muddled apple slices, along with an apple garnish. Superb.

Closer to home, "S&TC" events dot the social calendar. One example, in the Fort Lauderdale, FL, suburb of Aventura, the Bourbon Steak restaurant and Lobby Lounge are offering half-priced Cosmos from May 30-July 1 to anyone with a ticket stub from the movie from May 30 through July 1.

DISCUS, the major U.S. industry trade organization, has come up with a set of cocktail recipes in support of "Sex & The City" mania.

“As the popularity of ‘Sex and the City’ has grown, we have definitely seen the trend move towards bold, stylish cocktails,” said Omar Muhammad, mixologist at Teatro Goldoni, winner of Washington, DC’s “Best Cocktail of 2008” award which is one of the DISCUS recipes. “People are experimenting with new flavors and moving away from your traditional martini.”GOLDINI